Does this description make sense?

[venivdvici]

Would this be one I could use for the snake? I don't think it has circuit boards but I can't really tell.
http://www.vintagetvsets.com/fm1.htm

So the snake would touch the chassis and an above chassis B+ post. I see B+ a lot. I wish I knew what a B+ post was. Does it have another name?

Thanks for the info!

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Some thing like a snake is long enough to touch the chassis and at the same time easily hit an above chassis B+ post and get electrocuted to death.

Most companies had circuit boards then which may have buged the snake enough to keep the critter safe (pokey test points and lots of small above chassis components), but someting like a Zenith or a Packerd Bell which had no circuit boards....Many of these 100% hand wired sets by that time used chassis mount terminal strips that could be accessed above chassis (Zenith REALLY liked useing these) often placing several B+ terminals easily touchable above chassis where that snake could comfortably get to them.

[Steve D.]

Nice that you're writing a novel that is of interest to us VK'ers. However, way to much technical detail for the average reader to comprehend or even care about. I know your main character is a TV repairman circa 1961, but keep it simple and moving. Ie: Damn, It was an older model RCA color set. He'd worked on his share of these hulking beasts. "I just know this is gonna be a bench job" he muttered, as he started to remove the giant set's back to check the tubes. Sure enough, the acrid scent of burnt electronics invaded his nose. "No simple tube swap here." Guess I'll give her the bad news that I have to pull the chassis and take it to the shop." Then you can get into the woman's reply, how much she paid for the set and there's no damn color shows most of the time. Ect. I'll leave the dialogue to you. If you get into all the details of deguassing the set or changing specific tubes your reader's eyes will glaze over. Have the woman complain and discribe the symptons and your experienced hero TV repair guy do a quick diagnosis, explain the problem, what ever you come up with, and pull the chassis. Hell, it could be the "fringe area localizer switch" for all the woman knows. She just wants it fixed and he wants out of that house.

-Steve D.

[venivdvici]

You're absolutely right! I really don't want to get bogged down in the details. And the main story will be a suspense romance (yes, a chick book). I'm writing it from the repairman's POV, and since I'm waaaaay out of my element with vintage teevee repair (but I think it's way cool anyway), I want a sentence or phrase here or there for color. I just want it to be correct, that's all. The repairman would look at a set and identify the exact model in his head, I think. Then again, you'd know that best!

Right now you taught me the phrase "bench job" which I take to mean he's gotta spend time testing to diagnose the problem. You taught me there's an acrid scent to burnt tubes. I didn't know that.

I'm not above making things up. Heck, the location I'm using is made up. But I don't really want to make up television repair details. I think it's cooler when real details are provided.

I swear, this is like learning a foreign language and trying to translate correctly! Thank you.

BTW, nice site! I love the Merrill.

Originally Posted by Steve D.

Nice that you're writing a novel that is of interest to us VK'ers. However, way to much technical detail for the average reader to comprehend or even care about. I know your main character is a TV repairman circa 1961, but keep it simple and moving. Ie: Damn, It was an older model RCA color set. He'd worked on his share of these hulking beasts. "I just know this is gonna be a bench job" he muttered, as he started to remove the giant set's back to check the tubes. Sure enough, the acrid scent of burnt electronics invaded his nose. "No simple tube swap here." Guess I'll give her the bad news that I have to pull the chassis and take it to the shop." Then you can get into the woman's reply, how much she paid for the set and there's no damn color shows most of the time. Ect. I'll leave the dialogue to you. If you get into all the details of deguassing the set or changing specific tubes your reader's eyes will glaze over. Have the woman complain and discribe the symptons and your experienced hero TV repair guy do a quick diagnosis, explain the problem, what ever you come up with, and pull the chassis. Hell, it could be the "fringe area localizer switch" for all the woman knows. She just wants it fixed and he wants out of that house.

-Steve D.

[Accumulator]

Originally Posted by Steve D.

Damn, It was an older model RCA color set.

It's 1961, right? A 1958 RCA color set would be still very new.

Did any 3-year-old RCA TV sets ever blow their filter capacitors? Isn't a dried-out or leaky capacitor an age-related failure? Like after 15 or 20 years, minimum?

Originally Posted by Steve D.

If you get into all the details of deguassing the set or changing specific tubes your reader's eyes will glaze over.

That seems true. I would make the symptom a simple rolling vertical hold, the repairman knows it's a sync tube, but he doesn't have a spare in his caddy. Rather than appear incompetent, he takes the chassis into the shop. Then he sends his least-favorite co-worker out later to put the chassis back in, to distribute the tea-n-cookie torture evenly.

[venivdvici]

Hmm, I wonder if this "fix" would work.
'--the main filter capacitor had gone bad. That was strange on a new set, until he remembered reading a few years back some sets were built with cheap caps from the Philippines. Fine with him. The more corners electronics companies cut, the better his repair business.'
=================================
A few years earlier, Mrs. Amato blew almost eight hundred bucks of her late husband's insurance on the '58 RCA Anderson with the CTC-7C chassis and complained when all her shows weren't in color. Hunny explained most shows weren't broadcast in color and she should save her money and return it for a nice black and white set. Nope. She wanted to be ready for the color revolution. She'd read in Life it was coming.

Her problem was, "The picture's messed up. It looks smaller and it's got this dark area across it that keeps creeping up through the picture and the sides are bending in and out." A shrunken raster with a hum bar and accompanying hourglass bending. At her house, he tried replacing the two 5U4 power rectifier tubes, but that didn't fix the problem, so he brought the set to the shop.

With Yoyo out of his hair, he pulled out the heavy beast's chassis. It had twenty-eight tubes, drew three hundred eighty watts, and had over twenty-two kilovolts of zapping power. Once he was familiar with its layout, he found the problem--the main filter capacitor had gone bad. That was strange on a new set, until he remembered reading a few years back some sets were built with cheap caps from the Philippines. Fine with him. The more corners electronics companies cut, the better his repair business.

He replaced the cap, a major job in itself, checked the rest of the tubes, cleaned the tuner and controls, reinstalled the chassis, and did a thorough degaussing and complete convergence and purity set-up. It ran good as new.

Originally Posted by Accumulator

It's 1961, right? A 1958 RCA color set would be still very new.

Did any 3-year-old RCA TV sets ever blow their filter capacitors? Isn't a dried-out or leaky capacitor an age-related failure? Like after 15 or 20 years, minimum?



That seems true. I would make the symptom a simple rolling vertical hold, the repairman knows it's a sync tube, but he doesn't have a spare in his caddy. Rather than appear incompetent, he takes the chassis into the shop. Then he sends his least-favorite co-worker out later to put the chassis back in, to distribute the tea-n-cookie torture evenly.

[Accumulator]

Originally Posted by venivdvici

You taught me there's an acrid scent to burnt tubes. I didn't know that.

No. Burned wiring or burned resistors. A "burnt tube" isn't likely. a "burned out" tube is, but that would be odorless. Like a burned out light bulb.

[Steve D.]

Originally Posted by Accumulator

No. Burned wiring or burned resistors. A "burnt tube" isn't likely. a "burned out" tube is, but that would be odorless. Like a burned out light bulb.

Exactly. I never said burnt tube produces an acrid scent. As Accumulator said the acrid scent or smell is from an electrical short or rubber insulation or a resistor or any number of other toxic components in a television chassis. A "bench job" means that the chassis is taken back to the shop and put on the work bench to be repaired.

-Steve D.

[venivdvici]

Got it! I'll put that in my notes.

Originally Posted by Accumulator

No. Burned wiring or burned resistors. A "burnt tube" isn't likely. a "burned out" tube is, but that would be odorless. Like a burned out light bulb.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Accumulator

A "burnt tube" isn't likely. a "burned out" tube is, but that would be odorless.

Oh, if a tube radio or TV set hasn't been operated in a long while, dust accumulated on its tubes will produce a weak burnt smell, very similar to the smell you get when you turn the house heat on first time a cold snap happens in Autumn. The dust on the radiators making the smell. But the tubes for the most part don't care, they will operate just fine. Unless the dust is literally 1/8 inch or more thick...

As for the faulty filter caps, about ten years ago there was some industrial spying one cap company in Taiwan I think it was, had stolen what they thought was the competitor's secret recipe for the special sauce used to make capacitors. And they started using it to make their caps. Only problem was what they stole was a recipe for some research and development cap experiments that did not contain materials to extend cap lifetime, maybe so the lab scientists of the competitor company had intended to test various new such materials to add to the recipe that was stolen. The evil spying and stealing company made lots of faulty caps that ended up in things like computer motherboards and power supplies, causing a lot of early failures in several major computer companies' products... This could easily have happened in the USA back in the 50's, as people around the world are more similar in most respects than the small stuff like what they look like or like to have for dinner.

[old_coot88]

Originally Posted by Steve D.

Nice that you're writing a novel that is of interest to us VK'ers. However, way to much technical detail for the average reader to comprehend or even care about. I know your main character is a TV repairman circa 1961, but keep it simple and moving. Ie: Damn, It was an older model RCA color set. He'd worked on his share of these hulking beasts. "I just know this is gonna be a bench job" he muttered, as he started to remove the giant set's back to check the tubes. Sure enough, the acrid scent of burnt electronics invaded his nose. "No simple tube swap here." Guess I'll give her the bad news that I have to pull the chassis and take it to the shop." Then you can get into the woman's reply, how much she paid for the set and there's no damn color shows most of the time. Ect. I'll leave the dialogue to you. If you get into all the details of deguassing the set or changing specific tubes your reader's eyes will glaze over. Have the woman complain and discribe the symptons and your experienced hero TV repair guy do a quick diagnosis, explain the problem, what ever you come up with, and pull the chassis. Hell, it could be the "fringe area localizer switch" for all the woman knows. She just wants it fixed and he wants out of that house.

-Steve D.

You are right of course. In my little rewrite of the author's text, i was trying to accomodate his expressed interest in the technical stuff and having it correct. He then has the option to dial the dialog back to suit the average reader's interest level.

[Accumulator]

Originally Posted by venivdvici

A few years earlier, she blew almost eight hundred bucks of her late husband's insurance on the new set and complained when all her shows weren't in color. He explained most shows weren't broadcast in color and she should save her money and return it for a nice black and white set. Nope. She wanted to be ready for the color revolution. She'd read in Life it was coming.

Do you mean his life insurance? She could only have blown eight hundred bucks of that after he died. If he is dead then how could he explain the lack of color broadcasts? Is he a ghost?

[venivdvici]

Ha! Thanks. It wasn't her late husband but the main character of the story who explained it to her. I had already fixed that to read "Hunny" instead of "he" but great catch!!!

Originally Posted by Accumulator

Do you mean his life insurance? She could only have blown eight hundred bucks of that after he died. If he is dead then how could he explain the lack of color broadcasts? Is he a ghost?

[maxhifi]

i think one potential goldmine of info is old 1950s issues of Radio and TV News. The Mac's service column had tons of stories about specific repairs.

[venivdvici]

Thanks, but I'm not having much luck finding the correct link.

Originally Posted by maxhifi

i think one potential goldmine of info is old 1950s issues of Radio and TV News. The Mac's service column had tons of stories about specific repairs.

[maxhifi]

Originally Posted by venivdvici

Thanks, but I'm not having much luck finding the correct link.

Oh sorry i should have explained
Radio news, later radio and television news, then radio and tv news, then electronics world, was a ziff-davis magazine the 20th century. It was targeted at tv and radio service people, as well as people with a general interest in electronics. Any major city university technical library will likely have back issues.. Or maybe a public library can get it on microfiche.